Cell biology

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a complex condition that affects millions of people worldwide. There are many pathways and processes involved in the pathogenesis of this disease, and attempting to mimic these interactions in laboratory environments can prove troublesome. This blog article explains how ischemia and reperfusion models can be used to examine the complications of CHD and discover potential drug targets.

Whether studying a particular disease or a particular tissue the relevance of the data obtained from cell-based assays are always going to be affected by how closely the conditions used in the study recapitulate the physiological environment in vivo.

Reactive oxygen species are measured in cancer research as well as in immunology or in food laboratories. This proves that ROS has many causes and just as many effects. These can be both physiological and pathological. This blog post explains what reactive oxygen species are and how they can be measured.

Recently we were talking about cell death assays. However, these are closely related to testing the opposite: living cells. The acquisition of cell viability is probably the task microplate readers need to assume most frequently. In this blog article you will learn why it is so popular and how to measure it.

Toxicity to an organism often starts at a much lower level: cells. For cancer cells it is their inability to die, for drugs it is their side effects which may harm cells and their organisms. Hence, assays that report on the cytotoxicity of drugs and conditions are an integral part of preclinical research.